The National Security Administration (NSA) looked at the...

The National Security Administration (NSA) looked at the Internet activity of nearly 90,000 individuals, groups, individuals, or organizations in 2013, said a transparency report released Friday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) (http://bit.ly/TE8H3W). The report is part of ODNI’s ongoing efforts to declassify more information, at the direction of President Barack Obama last summer, ODNI said. But it’s just the first step of many the government must take, said several lawmakers. ODNI should release the total number of people whose information is collected under these authorities, said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. Franken’s Surveillance Transparency Act (S-1452) would mandate such reporting from intelligence agencies, he said. “The administration’s report is a far cry from the kind of transparency that the American people demand and deserve,” said Franken in a statement. “It still leaves Americans in the dark.” The report also showed the FBI issued almost 20,000 national security letters in 2013, but did not disclose the number of targets of those letters because Congress does not require the FBI to track that number, ODNI said. “When the FBI says it conducts a substantial number of searches and it has no idea of what the number is, it shows how flawed this system is and the consequences of inadequate oversight,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in a statement. “This huge gap in oversight is a problem now, and will only grow as global communications systems become more interconnected.”